Rick Springfield look about like this when he played the then-Irvine Meadows Amphitheater in the summer of ‘83. ASSOCIATED PRESS

We’ve been spending time in 1983 lately, thanks to AMC’s new series “Halt and Catch Fire,” a period piece set in that year against the backdrop of the personal computer revolution that was just about to blow up in a big way.

It’s a well-made show, though it pales in comparison to the network’s two brightest gems, the late “Breaking Bad” and the almost-finished “Mad Men.” But there’s a genuine kick to seeing period fashions and hairstyles and cars.

Four episodes in, it all got Brainiac wondering what was going on around our fair cities this last week of June three decades ago. Off to the Brainiac Time Machine – aka the Orange County Register microfilm, a medium itself now mostly anachronistic – to see what was what.

And glory be if the first thing we spotted of note in the June 26, 1983 edition wasn’t an advertisement for the Commodore 64, one of the first best-selling home computers. At $188.88, the ad touted an “unbelievable low price on Commodore’s powerful (64 K) memory computer.”

That’s right, folks, 64 whole kilobytes inside that baby! Why, you could store a whole photo on that bad boy!

There were deals all over the place back then. Von’s would sell you a half-gallon of Jim Beam for $9.99, and if you like a chaser you could add on a six-pack of Slim Price beer for $1.59. Houses were cheaper, but good golly the interest rates were double or triple what you’ve been paying lately.

Rick Springfield and The Motels both had shows at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater that summer, and both also have or had shows here this summer, though at venues maybe a tenth or twentieth the sizes they were in back then.

Local news had the usual mix of cops and courts and human interest items. Westminster’s mayor at the time, Elden Gillespie, had the embarrassment of being cited for shoplifting a $3.76 faucet from a Garden Grove hardware store – “I just plumb forgot it,” he said of putting it in his pocket while he picked out and paid for washers and a lightbulb.

The former Westminster Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year said he lost sleep for four or five nights until a friend who knew the store owner managed to convince him that “I wasn’t a crook,” the mayor said, and charges were dropped.

The same week Gillespie got off of the hot seat his colleague, Westminster City Councilman Gil Hodges, slid onto it, attending his first council meeting after being convicted in federal court of conspiracy in a loan-fraud scheme. Hodges later got sentenced to 18 months in prison, though like Gillespie he eventually cleared his name when an appeal resulted in a retrial and that in turn in a verdict of not guilty.

Meanwhile, in Garden Grove, Robert Nesbitt, the owner of The Echo bar, died in a shooting after several bandits robbed him of a few hundred bucks as he readied the bar for the early morning drinkers.

Nesbitt had owned The Echo for 22 years and apparently it wasn’t always the safest joint in town. His wife said at the time of his slaying that three men wearing masks had held up 18 patrons just before last call three weeks earlier.

Other than that, she said, there hadn’t been any trouble since that time in the ‘60s when when two robbers shot and killed a patron after robbing the place. They thought the guy was following them, she said. All he really wanted was to go to the bathroom.

The Echo was on Katella Avenue where Good Ol’ Boys Saloon is today. We’ve not been there but one of our favorite colleagues was there a week or two ago for a gig by her husband’s band the Silver Streak Hobos and she survived just fine. Check it out and let us know what’s on tap, why don’t you.

Contact the writer: Got a question, a comment, a story idea for us? Contact Brainiac@ocregister.com or call 714-796-7787.

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